Hula and Hibiscus Flowers
by memories.of.rain
Summary: It was a tradition in Hunk's family, to learn traditional hula. He just happened to meet someone who wanted to learn just as badly as he did.


**This was supposed to be short but it got a mind of it's own, especially after researching hula for over two hours XD**

 **This prompt was sent to me by iridescentrefraction/hanced on tumblr: I'm a real fan of the dancer au, so what about Hunk and Lance as principal dancers, rehearsing together for a big production? bonus points if there is goofiness involved, and i'll allow you to pick the style of dance. Thank you so much for the offer, by the way! I hope this is the kind of prompt you had in mind.**

 **I kinda got sidetracked from the prompt, but hopefully they'll still like it...**

 **So, please enjoy the hula dancer au no one even thought about.**

* * *

It was a tradition in Hunk's family, to learn traditional hula. It had been something that was passed down through the generations and Hunk had always admired his family's dancing. He loved to watch the movements that told stories; stories of family and love and even heartache. But each dance was unique and done with certainty. Needless to say, he was eager to learn.

Every day after school, Hunk would walk to his class and spend an hour going over the proper movements and what each one meant. It was hard and Hunk didn't always get it, but he was determined to get it even if he did have to put in a little extra effort.

That was how he found himself in a secluded area of the beach, his house only a thirty minute walk away, practicing his moves. He tried to be as smooth and sure of himself as his makuahine, but he still felt awkward and jerky. But he wasn't going to be deterred by a minor setback, he'd get it eventually.

"That looks really cool," a voice said, startling Hunk who yelped and almost fell over. "Oh, my bad dude."

Hunk inspected the boy who had come out of nowhere. He had bronze skin, lighter than Hunk's own complexion, with brown hair. He was lanky and probably was at least three inches taller than Hunk was. He was dressed in bright colors with a flower behind his ear. He was cute and those big, curious blue eyes staring at him made Hunk feel butterflies in his stomach. Weird.

"It's okay," Hunk said, brushing imaginary dirt off his shorts. "I'm practicing hula."

"So it's a dance?"

Hunk nodded his head. "Yeah, it's a tradition in my family to learn traditional hula, sorta like a rite of passage."

The boy smiled. "That's so cool!" Hunk could tell his enthusiasm was genuine. The boy looked at him hesitantly. "Do you think you could teach me?"

Hunk tilted his head. "Teach you traditional hula?"

The boy nodded his head eagerly. "Yeah, it looks like a lot of fun, and I could like bring you snacks in return. My abuela has been teaching me."

Hunk smiled. "I guess I can, if you're willing to learn."

"I totally am. My name's Lance by the way."

"Hunk." Hunk stared at his new student and friend. "I like your flower."

Lance's smile could have split his face and Hunk felt the butterflies in his stomach flutter wildly inside him.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Teaching Lance was an interesting experience. It'd been a couple of months since their first meeting and Hunk had learned a lot about his friend. He was naturally very animated and liked quick movements and loud music. Traditional hula wasn't about that. It involved precise movements and controlled limbs. It was also sometimes purposefully slow, but Lance did his best to follow Hunk's instructions.

"No, Lance don't flail your arms like that," Hunk said, grabbing his friend's arm.

Lance huffed. "I'm not flailing," he grumbled.

Hunk snorted. "I thought you were trying to take flight." Lance's indignant stare caused Hunk to dissolve into peals of laughter, quickly followed by Lance joining in. When their laughter had died down, Lance was leaning against Hunk's shoulder. "Wanna try again?"

Lance nodded, but held his arms out in front of himself. "Can you guide my arms, I just need to get the flow right then I can just go from there."

Hunk swallowed inaudibly and reached out and grabbed Lance's arms. He molded his body against Lance's back and felt the butterflies come back with vengeance. Slowly he started guiding Lance's arms, trying to make the movements as smooth as he could. Lance was warm and soft and smelled like flowers and the churros he'd brought for them to share. He started at the wispy hairs on Lance's neck and wondered when he'd grow taller than Lance, or if he ever would. After going through the movements five times he carefully stepped away and moved in front of Lance to inspect the boy's movements without his help.

Lance's arms were much more in control and Hunk nodded approvingly at the progress. "Do you think you'll be ready to learn the hip movements soon?" Hunk asked, as he joined Lance in practicing the arm motions he'd already gotten down.

Lance shrugged. "If you think I am, I'm willing to try."

"Okay, we can introduce them next time."

They continued to dance for another ten minutes before waving goodbye to each other and walking home. Hunk noticed when he laid down to go to bed that night that the butterflies hadn't gone away and wondered if perhaps he should let his makuahine take cooking lessons from Lance. Lance's food never gave him butterflies. He'd bring it up in the morning if they didn't go away by the time he woke up.

The butterflies had subsided in the morning.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Lance was surprisingly talented at the hip movements of traditional hula, and Hunk unashamedly admired the way Lance's hips swayed and shook to an imaginary beat. He couldn't do them both at once yet, but Hunk thought Lance was doing really well. As Lance slowly turned his body, hips still rotating like they had a mind of their own, Hunk felt the butterflies return along with a blush that spread across his cheeks. He shifted awkwardly, but didn't pull his eyes away from Lance's body. He liked watching Lance move, whether it was his flailing limbs or when he was dancing. He just thought he looked… nice? Beautiful? Hunk wasn't really sure, but he liked it.

Lance continued for a just a little bit longer before looking expectantly at Hunk. "How was that?" Lance asked, his hip cocked slightly. He had nice hips, they were slightly rounded, contrasting nicely with Lance's otherwise lanky form. "Hunk?"

Hunk coughed awkwardly and nodded his head. "You're actually really good at this part," Hunk said and snorted softly at the cocky smirk that popped up on Lance's face. "Do you want to keep practicing this or do you want to try doing the arm motions at the same time?"

The confident look on Lance's face quickly melted into nervousness. "Do you think I'm ready for that?"

Hunk shrugged his shoulders but gave Lance a reassuring smile. "You should be fine, and it's just me. I promise I'll try not to laugh at you if you mess up." Lance glared at him, but gave him a grateful smile in return for his comforting words. The butterflies flared up and Hunk groaned softly.

Lance's eyebrows furrowed in concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah just, my mom's cooking keeps making me feel weird I guess?" Hunk scratched absentmindedly at his stomach. "Like, I keep getting this butterfly feeling."

Lance's eyes light up. "That's not a food feeling, Hunk!" He crossed his arm and leveled Hunk with a look. "My prima, Anita said that you get that feeling when you like _like_ someone." Hunk felt the blush that had gone away earlier return. He ducked his head down and made an interested humming noise. "Hunk, you like like someone! Who is it? I can totally be your wingman!"

Lance sounded so excited about Hunk having a crush on someone, but Hunk didn't know what to do. He thought it was related to food and to find out it was because he had a crush, on his _best friend_? He didn't know what to do. "Uh, well that'd be kind of hard- you know to be a wingman for me…"

Lance pouted. "How come? I'm probably an excellent wingman." Hunk shrugged, not meeting Lance's gaze. Lance's eyebrows peaked and his voice became small. "D-did I say something wrong?"

Hunk quickly shook his head. "N-no you're totally fine, just ah- well it's uh- it'd be kinda hard for you to be my wingman because I don't think you could um- talk me up to yourself."

Lance stared at him for a moment as if he didn't comprehend what Hunk had just admitted. He waited patiently before he saw a blush erupt across Lance's face. "Y-you like me?" Lance asked, looking at Hunk from underneath his eyelashes.

Hunk smiled nervously. "Uh yeah, you uh- don't have to feel the same of course we're still friends and all so no wor-"

The rest of his sentence was cut off by Lance's smooth lips. God, was all of Lance this soft? And warm, wow, this was nice, but wet. Neither of them really knew what they were doing, but they were trying and it felt good so that's good. Hunk lifted one of his hands to card through Lance's hair as their lips slid clumsily against each other's. Slowly the two pulled away from each other and Hunk felt himself getting lost in those blue eyes.

Lance gave him a brilliant smile, his lips all red from the kiss he'd just given Hunk. "I like like you too."

A giant smile grew on his face and he couldn't stop himself from swooping Lance up into his arms and twirling them around. The two laughed happily, even when they fell over and crashed against the sand. Lance quickly scooted himself over to Hunk and laid his head comfortably against his chest.

"You know what this means, Ku'uipo?" Hunk asked.

"Ku'uipo?" Lance asked.

"Sweetheart," Hunk said, running a hand down Lance's back. Lance smiled but shook his head at the previous question.

"We get to learn some couple's hula!"

Lance grinned. "Yeah, and I can introduce you to my family."

Hunk gulped but nodded his head. "You can meet mine too."

"Awesome."

And it was, Hunk thought as he laid there with Lance at their secluded spot on the beach. This was perfect, and even if the butterflies didn't disappear, he had at least learned why he got them and that Lance must have them too.

~.~.~.~.~.~

By the time they entered the Galaxy Garrison, Lance and Hunk had been dancing for years. They'd performed at festivals and even sometimes helped other kids learn how to hula if they had time. They mostly liked just dancing together, it was their thing. Even if they did have to turn on their cruddy old CD player that was in their dorm room to try and recreate what they did at home, it worked. They'd turn the volume down low, the scratchy sounds from the outdated speakers drifting across the room as they moved with each other, swaying and twisting.

They'd also grown up more, Lance was still a beanstalk, but he was only about an inch taller than Hunk was now. Still, Hunk practically dwarfed Lance in size and could easily wrap his arms around Lance's body. It was funny sometimes, to see how much they differed in size, but it'd always been that way for them so it really wasn't shocking to them. Besides, Lance said he liked being completely encompassed by Hunk's warm embrace and it wasn't like Hunk minded at all.

Sometimes, if Hunk was able to find any, he'd bring Lance a flower to put behind his ear, even if he only wore it in their dorm. Lance always appreciated the gesture and kissed his cheek like he was some kind of angel. Yeah, it was great.

While they were there, Hunk's makuahine liked sending them CD's and news clippings of LGBT couples getting married that were in the newspaper. Lance always laughed at the blush that came to Hunk's face at the clippings, nuzzling his head against Hunk's arm. Lance's abuela sent them biscochitos, which Lance told him between his laughter were apparently Mexican wedding cookies. It didn't take a genius to see that their families were already planning on their eventual marriage, but they were in no rush, they just continued their dancing and their training at the Garrison.

But then the whole Voltron thing happened, and Hunk and Lance's routine was thrown out the window. They barely had time to just relax between training and trying to form Voltron and traveling to different planets to try and make alliances and liberate them from Zarkon and his Galra Empire, so Hunk and Lance hadn't danced in a long while. It made them both sad, but they worked through it. It wasn't until they'd been in space for four months that the opportunity for them to dance came up.

"The Ogba are a very peaceful tribe on Egwu," Allura explained, pulling up pictures of the next planet they were visiting. "They value peace and the exchange of culture."

"Exchange of culture?" Shiro asked, examining the pictures the princess had put up.

"I'm assuming she means language, traditions, food, that sort of stuff, right princess?" Pidge asked.

Allura nodded her head. "Unfortunately, we don't really have anything we can exchange with them as the Altean artefacts we do have…"

Keith waved his hand at her. "Yeah, we understand don't worry."

Shiro smiled. "I'm sure we can think of something to exchange."

Hunk shot Lance a look and made a small gesture with his arms similar to one how they did in their dances and Lance's face lit up. He nodded his head animatedly and Hunk smiled before turning his attention back to everyone. "Lance and I have something," Hunk said. The entire room's attention focused in on them and Hunk shuffled nervously. Lance put a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. "It's a uh- a dance."

Keith snorted and gave them a speculative look. "A dance? I don't think hip hop is going to get this whole thing to run smoothly," Keith said, crossing his arms.

Lance glared at him. "It's not some modern dance, Mr. High-and-Mighty," Lance said, putting his hands on his hips. Hunk thought he looked like his mom, but didn't say anything.

"It's a traditional dance, everyone in my family has to learn it," Hunk said.

Allura's eyebrows shot up as she looked between him and Lance. "So it's a family dance?"

"Well, more cultural, but everyone in my family knows it."

"And Lance," Pidge said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Hey, I'm family!" Lance yelled, his posture turning defensive.

Hunk placed a calming hand on Lance's back and looked at everyone in the room. "Look, if Lance and I can just gather what we need, we can handle this okay?"

Allura still looked hesitant, but Shiro nodded his head. "Alright, we'll leave this to you two," he said firmly.

Hunk almost laughed as Lance bounced excitedly beside him. "Thank you, we won't let you down guys!" Lance said, giving a lazy salute.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Finding the supplies they needed was difficult. They resorted to using Lance's blanket to make a wrap skirt for Lance to wear because Lance insisted that he still felt much more comfortable in them than the malo that Hunk wore, which was made out of some of the fabric he'd managed to find lying in a dusty room. They didn't have any materials for the accessories they used in their normal performances, but they'd managed to collect enough plants along their way to the village that they had make-shift leis. And of course, Hunk had managed to find a flower that resembled a hibiscus which he carefully tucked behind Lance's ear.

"Beautiful," Hunk murmured against the shell of Lance's ear, before placing a kiss on his boyfriend's temple. Lance gave him a soft smile placing a kiss on his cheek before continuing their walk to the village. The other paladins, Allura and Coran had left before them to explain to them that they'd come to form an alliance. Hunk wondered vaguely what they'd say about their outfits, but wasn't really worried. They'd worn something similar to this for multiple performances and it was Hunk's culture, why should he be embarrassed?

"I'm excited," Lance said as the got closer to the village, "We haven't been able to do this in so long."

Hunk nodded his head. "Me too," it had been _way_ to long as far as he was concerned. "Pidge brought their gadget right?"

"Yep, should play the song, might sound a little weird though, that's a really old CD."

Hunk shrugged. "It was our favorite."

Lance looked down and grabbed Hunk's hand, lacing their fingers together. "It still is."

"Even if it is a little more modern than what we usually do," Hunk said.

Arriving at the village was fairly uneventful. All the villagers had gathered to talk to the Voltron gang, so Hunk and Lance just walked up. No one seemed to notice them, except for a few curious Ogba who were staring at them with their four eyes, their furry ears twitching to pick up on the sounds around them.

"-ould be here any moment and then we can do the exchange with you, Chief Benalu," Allura said.

"Don't worry, we're here," Lance said happily, his skirt twirling around his ankles. His bare feet kicked up a little bit of dirt in his excitement, but it quickly settled.

The group turned to the two performers and Hunk could tell that they were not expecting _this_. Keith's eyes had practically popped out of his skull. Pidge and Allura just looked curious, and Shiro and Coran both looked confused. Yeah, Hunk had kind of expected this.

"Ah, so you are the one's participating in the exchange," Chief Benalu said with a smile, his voice raspy but warm. It reminded him of his Tutu.

"Yes, Chief Benalu, we're going to perform for you hula kahiko, or a traditional hula. Unfortunately, we don't have the right components for a truly traditional hula, so I hope it's okay that we used different music than is traditionally used," Hunk said politely.

The Chief nodded his head and gestured with two of his four arms to the courtyard that was behind them. "That is fine, I thank you for following our customs of the exchange."

Hunk nodded his head and tugged gently on Lance's hand so that he'd follow him to the courtyard. He heard quiet mumbling from the crowd, but Hunk was used to that, it was natural. He gave Lance's hand one more reassuring squeeze before he dropped Lance's hand and got in position. They would usually start with a chant, but with their lack of traditional music, Hunk didn't think it would fit too well with the rest of the performance. Instead he turned his gaze on Pidge.

"Pidge, can you start the music?" Hunk asked. Pidge shook their head before tapping a couple of times on their gadget. Suddenly a soft guitar echoed from the device followed by a woman's voice.

Hunk and Lance didn't even have to think about it, this was natural for them. After years of dancing together and this being their favorite song to dance to, they could do the dance in their sleep. Their movements were in sync with the music and were fluid. He grabbed Lance's hand and spun him delicately towards him were Lance swayed softly, Hunk's hand placed against the curve of his hip.

The dance continued in its soft and delicate motions. This dance was so different from the more powerful dances they usually performed, but this one told a story that they both loved. A story of love and coming together, and it showed in their movements. As the song came to an end, Lance and Hunk's hands overlapped. The crowd in front of them broke into cheers and Lance shot him a tender smile. Hunk returned it before placing another kiss on Lance's temple.

Lance was instantly surrounded by what Hunk could only assume were Ogba children. Hunk laughed a little, but figured Lance would be fine especially when Lance playful spun around making his skirt flair around him causing the children to shriek with laughter. Hunk made his way over to the Voltron gang with a smile. Allura was the first person to speak up.

"That was amazing, Hunk," She said, her eyes sparkling.

Coran nodded his head quickly, giving him a thumbs up. "An excellent performance, paladin!" He said.

"I didn't know you guys could do that," Shiro said, a small smile on his face. "It was nice." Keith just nodded his head, but Hunk knew he'd enjoyed the performance.

"It was good, but wasn't it a little… romantic?" Pidge asked, pushing up their glasses.

Hunk snorted. "Well it should be, Lance and I have been doing that dance for years now," Hunk said happily.

Allura blinked owlishly at him. "Years?"

Hunk nodded his head. "Yeah, we've been dancing together since we were like twelve."

"Do you mean dancing in general or that dance?" Keith asked.

"Dancing together since we were twelve," Hunk said, "My makuahine made us that CD on our second anniversary when we were fourteen."

The group stared at him in shock before turning their gaze to Lance and then back to him. "Anniversary?" Allura asked.

Hunk grinned. "Yeah, we got together when we were twelve, just a couple of months after we started dancing together. Our families were trying to convince us to get married before well, before Voltron and everything."

Pidge turned to Shiro and Hunk watched with no small amount of amusement as they mouthed the word marriage as if they couldn't believe it. They probably couldn't, Lance was a bit of a flirt. But Lance had always been that way, in fact, Lance's whole family were flirts, even his abuela who had flirted with Hunk a few times.

"Sorry we didn't tell you," Hunk said finally. They hadn't meant to keep it from everyone, they really thought everyone already knew they were together. They kissed often enough, but maybe they thought that was also a Lance thing.

Shiro shook his head. "No, we should've realized," he said softly, his face open and accepting. "So how many years is it now?"

Hunk took a minute to calculate, but the question was answered for him. "Six going on seven years, right Hunk-a burning love," Lance said. Hunk turned to look at his boyfriend and was amused to see at least three Ogba children grasping to the folds of his skirt and one in his arms, all four of their arms wrapped around Lance's neck.

"That sounds right," Hunk said. "You came back with guests."

Lance shrugged, careful to not disrupt the child in his arms. "I have the knack." He blew playful on the ear of the child in his arms and was rewarded with a peal of giggles. "They said they want to learn the dance."

Hunk nodded and turned back to the gang. "Would you guys be okay with handling the alliance stuff while we teach?"

Allura and Shiro both shook their heads. "We can handle this, share your dance," Allura said, before leading the group towards the expectant looking Chief Benalu.

Hunk turned back to Lance and his increasing number of alien children. "Alright, let's teach," Hunk said happily, clapping his hands.

Lance and Hunk shared a tender smile as they taught the Ogba children hula; they were able to share something that was so important to them and got to dance together again. If Hunk closed his eyes and imagined really hard, he swore he could smell the scent of flowers and churros, the same smell that he'd smelt on Lance all those years ago.

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 **Thank you so much for reading this and if you have time I'd really appreciate it if you left a comment. If you have a prompt you want me to write send them to cakelanguage on tumblr!**


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